Architectural Digest: The Cartier Temples
Teaming up with the world’s leading artisans and designers, Cartier celebrates its storied heritage and reimagines the future of the retail experience… Read the entire article (and an excerpt below) at ArchitecturalDigest.com
Romance, curiosity, beauty, innovation—the history of Cartier is multilayered and ever evolving. But the Maison’s creative core has always been craftsmanship, an unparalleled savoir faire that continues to unfurl like a signature red ribbon. Since its founding by Louis-François Cartier in 1847, the French jewelry house has built its name on pieces that stand the test of time, from iconic wonders passed down through generations to one-of-a-kind treasures on museum display. Today the brand’s rich artisanal traditions are taking center stage at its Paris, London, and New York flagship boutiques, a holy trinity that has dazzled visitors for more than a century. Dramatically transformed by world-renowned designers, with installations by expert artisans, these legendary temples now boldly incorporate the Maison’s legacy into their very walls and rooms.
“All our boutiques are rebuilt with their own singularity, and they all have a strong local link, with the urban landscape and heritage of the city,” reflects Arnaud Carrez, Cartier’s Senior Vice President & CMO. “When it comes to our temples, they each carry a part of Cartier’s identity. They are not only retail spaces, they are ways to immerse our customers in the Maison’s world.”
“I wanted to make each Cartier project a universal and timeless place by referring to the local context of each city.”
Laura Gonzalez, Designer
Cartier’s long-standing fascinations with flora and fauna take root and take flight at the Paris temple, the birthplace of the panther in 1914, when the signature motif first appeared on a wristwatch. Located at 13 rue de la Paix, the historic building also served as the artistic home base of Jeanne Toussaint, Cartier’s Creative Director from 1933 until the 1970s, nicknamed La Panthère. Its rooms witnessed the genesis of the naturalistic imagery that, among other accomplishments, distinguished her revolutionary tenure. Today, after a multiyear transformation led by Moinard Bétaille, Studioparisien, and Laura Gonzalez, with the help of 40 craft workshops, this flagship boutique introduces shoppers to Toussaint’s lasting impact from the moment they walk through the entry.
A plaster relief of leaves and branches climbs the atrium, where leather-marquetry panels by Baqué Molinié, created using leftover scraps, reveal a menagerie of insects and flowers. On the first floor, the Salon Jeanne Toussaint (dedicated to the boutique’s exclusive offerings) pays direct tribute to the iconic figure. Her avian obsessions play out in the Indes High Jewelry Salon on the third floor, where a lacquered screen embellished with gold leaf draws upon 1940s bird brooches. A bas-relief by maître d’art Etienne Rayssac, who first worked with the Maison in 2011, references those same winged forms on the fifth floor, which Studioparisien adapted as a functional, light-filled High Jewelry workshop. Here 18 Cartier artisans can be found realizing unique works as sun streams from the glass-roofed atrium into the atelier. For inspiration, they need only look to the top-floor archives, a trove of brand ephemera and records dating to the Maison’s beginnings.
Defined by its black marble façade, the six-story edifice has undergone multiple updates since Louis Cartier chose the address for his family company’s Paris headquarters in 1899. This latest transformation seamlessly bridges yesterday and tomorrow while heightening the visitor experience. Concierge services streamline the customer journey from the entry to the fifth and top levels, where Gonzalez has conjured an exclusive apartment for high-profile guests, complete with living and dining rooms, a kitchen, and a winter garden. “This apartment, which seems to be suspended in the clouds, was a wonderful creative playground,” notes the designer, who conjured plant life worthy of Toussaint in wall treatments, an exceptional embroidered screen by Lucie Touré and Ateliers Gohard, and marble mosaic floors by Pierre Mesguich. “Together with the artisans, we have drawn on Cartier’s imagination and creations to create furniture directly inspired by certain pieces or styles that have marked the Maison’s history.”
The past is ever present at the newly reimagined Cartier Fifth Avenue Mansion in Manhattan. Tapped to update this legendary temple, Gonzalez called upon masters of craft to reinterpret hallmarks of the Maison’s heritage in site-specific commissions. Upon entering the lobby, visitors immediately discover a large-scale wall sculpture by Peter Lane, its iridescent orbs nodding to the pearl necklace that Pierre Cartier famously traded with Mr. and Mrs. Morton Plant in exchange for their home. “Nothing would have been possible today without this twist of fate,” Gonzalez says of the temple’s fabled origin. “I wanted to exhibit the love story of the Plants—and their love for Cartier jewelry.”
In an adjacent wood-paneled salon, architecture buffs will see echoes of the New York City skyline in a monumental mosaic by Béatrice Serre, who composed tiny fragments of travertine, marble, and quartz into an interlocking pattern based on a 2013 openwork bracelet. For neighboring VIP Salons, Atelier Midavaine conceived representations of the seasons. Whereas an autumnal tree riffs on a 1914 tiara, its spring counterpart draws on the Maison’s mid-20th-century motifs of wildlife. Together the four works offer a vivid snapshot of passing time through the Cartier lens.
The Mansion’s grand staircase, now lined in verdant carpeting, ushers visitors to the second floor, where the narrative of the Maison unfolds further. Midavaine’s 2016 lacquered panel of three gold-leaf panthers continues to hold court, as does the Mansion’s existing painting of Mrs. Plant (now hung in what had been the family’s music room). Joining these artistic feats is a stone mosaic by Hervé Obligi, who assembled jasper, onyx, sardonyx, and andalusite into his own exquisite representation of the panther for the second-floor landing. Here, upholstered walls open to reveal digital displays that highlight selections from the archives in connection to vintage and contemporary creations. Especially lucky guests can also relax and refuel in the nearby private dining room, which Gonzalez has outfitted in a range of inviting sylvan hues.
“The redesign is really a modern interpretation of values that we’ve long held close—curiosity, savoir faire, and exceptional craftsmanship—and still ring true across the Maison.”
Mercedes Abramo, Cartier President & CEO, North America
“This renovation was all about the experience,” says Gonzalez, who professes a deep sense of responsibility for the Mansion, a landmark building she describes as “a symbol of Manhattan since it was acquired by Cartier in 1917.” Her goals were both to breathe fresh life into the historic interiors and to captivate audiences old and new. “Going shopping at Cartier should be a journey,” she reflects. “I want customers to feel at home.”
To conjure a vivid sense of place, Gonzalez commissioned installations that express a love for New York City. In the third-floor Bridal Salon, a painted screen by François Mascarello captures a scene of Central Park, with animals inspired by Cartier’s archives. (A cheerful poodle, for instance, references a diamond-encrusted pin from the collection of Princess Grace of Monaco.) Natural motifs continue in the nearby bridal-personalization area, a rhapsody of pink onyx and blush hues, for which Mathilde Jonquière conceived a mosaic of dragonflies, ladybugs, and butterflies. And in the neighboring engagement-jewelry VIP Salon, Etienne Rayssac modeled a plaster bas-relief after a 1942 brooch.
The brand’s dedication to craft and hospitality resound at its London temple, a Grade II–listed building on New Bond Street that reopened in 2018 after a renovation by Bruno Moinard. It was here, in 1922, that Jacques Cartier founded the English Arts Works Ltd. workshop, a subsidiary of British makers that went on to employ some 60 stone setters, pearl stringers, designers, and other experts. Mr. Cartier would later say of the London team: “Our art workshop has specialized in the achievements of modern jewelry, so our jewels can be passed from generation to generation without bearing a trace of an obsolete epoch.”
As part of the recent update, Cartier relocated the workshop to the third floor, where it now focuses on special orders and diamonds. The second floor has in turn been transformed into a 1,600-square-foot private apartment akin to the one at the Paris temple. Dubbed The Résidence, the by-appointment quarters span a dining room, a bar, a kitchen, and a boudoir-themed fitting room, where clients seeking extra privacy can try on jewels or gather for special events.
Layered throughout the building are poignant odes to Britain. Upon entering, guests are greeted by a bespoke Mydriaz light installation, its brass and glass discs reminiscent of the sculptural fascinators worn by British women. In the gentlemen’s Ruby Salon, counters of smoked and varnished larch evoke automobile dashboards. And the Winter Garden Salon muses on 19th-century English landscapes, with country scenery in the form of a de Gournay screen.
“Luxury is a way to define your identity.” - Cyrille Vingeron, Cartier President & CEO
Nowhere, however, is London’s influence on the Maison more evident than on the fourth floor, where Cartier’s local archives contain ephemera dating back as far as 1902. (King Edward VII would later describe Cartier as “the jeweler of kings and the king of jewelers.”) Included in this venerable cache are records of local Cartier innovations, among them the Crash watch—an emblem of the Swinging Sixties—and the Tutti Frutti bandeau, a multicolor masterpiece of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires.
“We hope our customers will find in our stores both what they were looking for and what they didn’t expect. We hope they will feel inspired.” - Arnaud Carrez, Senior Vice President & CMO
“It’s a place where there is a living memory,” says Cyrille Vigneron, Cartier President & CEO. “It symbolizes Cartier’s history, but with no nostalgia—living in the present, constantly relevant.” In Paris, London, New York, and beyond, his enduring wish for Cartier customers is that they will feel immediately welcome upon entering the brand’s boutiques. But more so than that, he wants guests to “learn more about the Maison—not only what we do, but who we are, our point of view on art, architecture, the city.” At Cartier’s three temples, these inspiring stories are now being told, room by room, through the language of design and craft. Put simply, Vigneron notes, “I hope for people to have some unforgettable moments.”